Previously: Pacey kissed Joey, but she did not reciprocate. Also, Dawson was a compulsive liar.
The Scare
Democracy Diva: Shrine O’Spielberg Horror Movie Marathon. Dawson and Joey are watching I Know What You Did Last Summer (except I totally thought that it was Scream until Kirsti corrected me, because all these movies are the same) and it’s the scene with Sarah Michelle Gellar, so I’m counting this as Buffy crossover magic.
Kirsti: Totally counts. Except that Buffy would never run away screaming.
Diva: FACT.
Anyway, since the writers clearly did not think to do a Halloween episode until way too late in the season, the excuse for all the horror afoot is that it’s Friday the 13th. Which I have never seen anyone celebrate, let alone with this amount of enthusiasm, but okay, show.
K: Basically, this entire episode is a giant excuse for Kevin Williamson to get back to what he does best. In case you’re unaware, the man who created Dawson’s Creek is also responsible for all four Scream movies and I Know What You Did Last Summer. And Cursed, which I watched because Joshua Jackson’s in it, and also to save you all the trouble of watching it: IT’S TERRIBLE.
Diva: I didn’t know any of that. That actually makes this episode about a hundred times worse – that all these ridiculous movie references are to the creator’s OWN MOVIES. I guess it makes sense that the creator of the douchiest character in TV history is also a total douche.
Anyway, this scene establishes that Dawson thinks stupid scary pranks are HILARIOUS, and Joey does not, and also teaches us that there’s a serial killer on the loose in their area. When Dawson pops out from under the bed wearing a Jason Voorhees hockey mask, Joey screams and then tickle-tackles him. It should be noted that I had never used the phrase “tickle-tackle” until these recaps, and I now find myself using it every other episode. Because nothing says “WE HAVE LOTS OF UNRESOLVED SEXUAL TENSION!” quite like the Dawson-Joey tickle-tackle.
K: Please don’t fuck because then we’ll have to recap it, and URGH. But seriously, Joey? Tickle-tackles? I’d punch him in the junk for that. I bet he’d stop his pranks pretty damned fast my way.
Diva: Capeside High. Pacey wants to know what the plan is for Friday the 13th, Dawson’s favorite day of the year. Really, Dawson? Your favorite day of the year? Get a life.
Dawson pretends he’s done trying to turn his life into a movie, which is the biggest joke I’ve ever heard. He describes his relationship with Jen thusly: “The characters were flawed and uninspired.” Problem #1, AKA this show’s most consistent problem: NO HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT TALKS LIKE THIS. Problem #2: If anyone is flawed and uninspired here, it is very clearly Dawson, not Jen. Problem #3: Dawson is a douchenozzle. (K: A+ and 1430 to all of this)
And of course, he was JKLOLing about the not-doing-pranks-because-his-life-isn’t-a-movie thing, because something creepy pops out of Pacey’s locker the moment he opens it. Fifteen-year-olds are allowed to find really stupid shit funny – I know I did – but I have never understood the joy people get out of pranks like this. Like, “ha ha, I just made something scare you, and I would have been terrified had I been in your position, but I wasn’t, so now I get to feel better about myself even though I didn’t prove you’re more gullible than me, I just proved that I’m a bag of dicks!”
In a random classroom, Cliff is asking Jen out on a date. She says she’s not so into the dating thing lately, and he thinks this is because Dawson’s not fun. She insists that’s not true, and says how original and imaginative he is. I’m not sure Dawson’s overactive imagination is really a point in his favor (see: his attempts to elaborately stage and FILM his first kiss), and I don’t find him remotely fun, but whatever. Long story short, Jen agrees to go out with Cliff that night.
Meanwhile, Joey walks over and pulls a giant fake snake out of her bag, another one of Dawson’s SUPER-FUN pranks. Jen uses this as proof that Dawson has a sense of humor, but Cliff gets defensive and is all, “I have humor!” Poor Cliff. I can’t believe this show has made me hate Dawson so much that I actually feel sorry for the super-handsome football player, but it has.
Cafeteria of Shit No One Should Talk About While Others are Trying to Eat. Pacey mentions that the serial killer goes after young girls and literally cuts out their hearts. Dude, I’m just trying to eat my sandwich here, can you not? Even worse, Jen thinks this is sad, because it means the serial killer is just looking for love! GIRL, GET A GRIP. THAT IS NOT WHAT THIS MEANS. I know Jen doesn’t have superb taste in men, but this is crazy even for her.
K: I can’t even, Jen. JFC.
Diva: And because of contrivance, Capeside is the next likely target of the serial killer’s I-JUST-WANT-TO-BE-LOVED murder spree. Dawson invites Jen over that night for his seance, but she can’t come because of her date with Cliff. They have a “are you mad?” “are YOU mad?” back and forth sort of awkwardness about it, which ends when Pacey finds a fake severed finger in his french fries, courtesy of Dawson. Jen wants to know why she hasn’t been a target of Dawson’s idiocy yet – if they’re still friends, she should be on the list of people he wants to humiliate via terror.
After film class, Cliff asks Dawson for advice on dating Jen. First of all, awkward. Second of all, maybe someone who dated her for longer than like an hour and a half would be better suited to give advice on this matter. Cliff is all, but I want to be imaginative and original just like Jen said you are, so help me out, bro. Dawson is so excited to hear that Jen said something nice about him that he agrees to think about it.
K: There is so much about this conversation that screams “DUDE, NO” that I don’t even know where to start handing them out.
Diva: Jen opens her locker to find a note that says “YOU’RE GOING TO DIE TONIGHT!” She is not amused, nor should she be. She thinks Dawson did it, and Cliff gets all “I’ll protect you” and I throw up in my mouth. He promises her an original and unpredictable date.
At home, Jen picks up the phone and basically reenacts the Drew Barrymore scene in Scream.
K: Good LORD, Kevin Williamson. Perhaps I shouldn’t place all the blame on him here, because he didn’t write this episode (Mike White, aka Ned Schneebly from School of Rock did!). BUT STILL.
Diva: I’m so glad Ned Schneebly had a hand in this show.
Jen’s convinced the murdery caller is Dawson, even though he repeatedly says he’s not. When he intimates that he’s inside her house, she picks up a giant knife. “This guy Dawson sounds like a real loser,” the voice says, and I laugh forever because A) FACT and B) I don’t remember who the caller actually is, but that voice sounds a hell of a lot like Cliff whispering, not to mention it being something Cliff would absolutely say. Remember how everyone on this show is terrible at being sneaky? Add him to that list.
Anyway, he pretends to be under her grandfather’s bed, so she runs in there screaming on the phone and wielding a giant knife and I’m like, can you just let this old man take a nap and stop bothering him, please? Someone starts scraping at the front door, and then the back door pops open. Jen is terrified, but it’s just Grams. The voice on the phone tells Jen “soon.” Uh, could you be more specific, please? I cannot wait around all weekend for you to come murder me. I do have a schedule, you know.
K: Meanwhile, Team Allergic to the Phone would be merrily going about her day due to excessive NOT ANSWERING THE PHONE.
Diva: Leery Manor. Dawson is pretending that he’s not setting up more weird pranks, and he gets called Richie Cunningham for the second time this season, courtesy of Joey. Pacey picks them up in his brother’s car, which he did not actually get the keys to – he just hot-wired it, so they have to leave it running with Joey watching the car while the boys run into a convenience store. In there, some domestic violence is occurring. Pacey asks if they should do something, and Dawson of course says no, because this situation does not directly involve Dawson Leery and thus he has no interest in it whatsoever. After screaming her face off at her abusive boyfriend, the lady is weirdly nice to Dawson and Pacey, who pretends to be just a few weeks shy of age 21. She offers to score them some wine, but steals it instead of buying it, because she’s a Crazy Lady.
K: Pacey’s mangled pronunciation of cab sav is my new favourite thing.
Diva: Back in the car, a supremely creepy guy approaches and asks Joey to roll down the window.
He wants directions to Providence, he talks about her “intense eyes,” he wants to know her name and if she lives nearby and is generally a walking PSA for stranger danger. (K: Seriously. Why would you even talk to that dude?! NOPE NOPE NOPITY NOPE.) Dawson comes back and the creepy guy runs away, probably because he senses that Dawson’s Creep is more than enough Creep for this situation, and he should take his own Creepery elsewhere. Dawson lectures Joey on not talking to strangers, and then gets truly excited when he imagines this guy kidnapping Joey and executing her in the woods. He is so getting off on describing this scene to her, and it’s making me want to order a dozen shots of brain bleach.
Pacey invites Crazy Lady from the convenience store to come over for a seance. Because it’s totally normal to invite a complete stranger over, and because it’s totally normal for a 20-something woman to accept an invitation to a party from a 15-year-old boy. (Yeah, yeah, he said he’s almost 21, but there’s no way she believed that shit for a second.) Abusive Boyfriend comes back to scream and chase her as she jumps into Pacey’s car and they all speed away.
Cliff shows up at Jen’s door to pick her up, and Grams could not be more excited about this match. You see, god-fearing Clifford goes to church every Sunday, so Jen is totally allowed to make out with him! That’s when Cliff drops the news that their big date is at Dawson’s house, because they’re going to his seance. I’m going to go ahead and assume these episodes were written and taped out of order, because didn’t Cliff and Jen just spend the entire last episode thinking it was super-creepy for Dawson to impose on their date? Why is the same thing we decided was a terrible idea in the previous episode suddenly cool?
K: Yeah, I’m pretty sure they should have aired the other way around but didn’t for some inexplicable reason. Also, Grams getting all fangirly over Cliff is kind of hilarious. And my notes say “CLIFF, NO. This is the worst date idea EVER.”
Diva: Crazy Lady is loving Dawson’s fucking stupid pranks, because, as she says, she loves to be scared, especially by her scary boyfriend! LOL YOU SEE ABUSE IS FUNNY JUST LIKE PRANKS! Jen calls Dawson out on the super-murdery note and phone calls, but he has no idea what she’s talking about. He’s like, have you met me? I’m a dork. I’m into intricately crafting horror movie props and putting them in inopportune places, not legitimately stalking and threatening to murder my friends. He’s creepy, but he’s not THAT creepy.
K: Except when he’s planning Joey’s murder in detail…
Diva: Dawson asks Joey to get the “seance book,” because of course every small town household has a seance book, whatever the fuck that is. Cliff thanks Dawson for inviting him over, and basically says, “isn’t it brilliant and original and unexpected to bring my date to her ex-boyfriend’s house?” Except I’m pretty sure that’s not the kind of spontaneity Jen’s into. Jen doesn’t realize that the idea to bring her there was Cliff’s – she thinks this is another Dawson maneuver.
Crazy Lady takes the seance super-seriously, and Dawson gives way too many details about the serial killer, who makes calls exactly like the one Jen got. Cliff tells another true, scary story about a lady who left her baby in a car by a field with the door open (because she’s a fucking idiot, I guess) and a snake crawled down the baby’s throat and pulled out all its organs. Crazy Lady tells another true scary story, about boys picking up a pretty girl at a convenience store, but they don’t know that she’s mentally ill because of years of abuse, and she carries a big knife so she can cut throats open for funzies. At the climax of her story, the power goes out and everyone freaks.
K: And this is why you don’t invite crazy people that you met at the convenience store to your house.
Diva: More life-saving Snark Squad advice.
After the not-break, the power’s still out and the phones are dead too. Dawson obviously makes everyone split up, because contrivance in horror movies (and shitty TV episodes that imitate said horror movies) demands that everyone split up. Crazy Lady/Possible Murderess wants to go with Dawson. Joey thinks that lady is cray and says Pacey’s mommy issues are going to kill them all, and it’s funny because it’s true. She accuses him of having shitty taste in women, and he’s like, at least I’m not in love with my best friend who has no idea! (But he a little bit is, because of his unrequited crush on Joey that was established in the last episode. They’re not best friends, but still, it’s pretty close.)
K: Joey saying that Pacey has terrible taste in women also makes me laugh and laugh because THE FUTURE.
Diva: They go investigate a noise, and when Joey asks if Pacey is scared he makes this little squeaking noise that is so hilarious, I want a ringtone of it.
Elsewhere in the Leery Manor of Creepiness, Cliff jumps out to scare Jen. She thinks Dawson set up all of this creepiness, including a message on a mirror that appears to be written in blood. I sort of hope the message says that the Chamber of Secrets is now open, so that a basilisk can kill all these assholes. (K: A+) Except Jen and Pacey, because I like them.
Outside, Crazy Lady reaches into her purse and Dawson freaks out, but she just pulls out a scarf. We watch from the view of a creepy stalker as she tells Dawson all about her psycho abusive boyfriend and how he’s a monster, but he’s HER monster. Can we please get this woman the help she so desperately needs? She says she can tell that Dawson just broke up with someone at the seance, but they both clearly still love each other. Except she’s actually talking about Joey, because even crazies can see what Dawson flat-out refuses to see. He admits that he did plan this power outage, but someone else seems to have jammed the fuse box. They hear a scary noise and head back inside. Dawson goes to look for Joey, and finds her seemingly dead on the floor and screams his head off.
K: The look on Joey’s face when she falls backwards out of the cupboard is HILARIOUS.
Diva: After another not-break, Dawson is still screaming. Someone in a mask holding a knife stands over him, and then everyone starts laughing and the knife-wielder removes the mask to reveal… JEN! And obviously Joey is not dead. Jen just wanted to get back at Dawson for the murdery note and phone call, which he again denies responsibility for. He says it was probs the serial killer. Thanks, Dawson, that’s very reassuring. Jen then gets upset because Dawson didn’t scare her, which means she doesn’t even count as one of his friends anymore.
K: *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk*
Diva: I second those *headdesk*s.
He basically says, you dumped me and thus you must hate everything about me, so I didn’t scare you. What a bag of bullshit. If that’s the case, Jen wants to know why Dawson invited her over, and he says it was to help Cliff. She says no, you did it to watch over me, and Dawson strokes her face while I take a quick break to vomit everywhere. He tries to kiss her, but at the last second she backs away and says she should go. But also that she doesn’t want to be crossed off his list of friends, especially when said friendship comes with perks like severed fingers in your french fries!
Pacey tells Crazy Lady that he might look young, but he has experience with older women. Apparently, we all should have prepared for this episode by watching it with a barf bag in front of us. (K: Legit.) They hear someone in the bushes, and of course, it’s Crazy Lady’s Abusive Boyfriend! He threatens to kill them both and bangs on the door screaming. She yells back that Pacey’s her new man and will protect her, which is a hundred different kinds of fucked up. HE’S A CHILD. Crazy Lady says she’ll call the cops, but Dawson screams that she can’t, because he cut the phone lines. You couldn’t have said that quietly, D? You had to make sure the psychopath trying to break into your home and murder your friends can HEAR that none of you have access to a phone? YOU ARE THE WORST.
Everyone starts locking the doors and barring the windows, but of course Abusive Boyfriend gets in via Joey’s ladder into Dawson’s bedroom. Yet another reason why creeping into people’s windows is never a good idea. Abusive Boyfriend runs in and starts choking Pacey, telling him to say goodbye. Then someone starts hitting Abuse Boyfriend with something, but I can’t see who because they’re still in power-outage lighting and my computer screen is too dark. Suddenly Crazy Lady is telling Abusive Boyfriend that she loves him and she’ll take care of him. UGH. They leave, with the Leery house looking like Buffy Summers’s living room at the end of most episodes. No one seems to think that when Dawson hooks the phone up again, they should maybe call the police on the abusive man who broke into their house, demolished their property, threatened to kill them all, and assaulted and attempted to murder a fifteen-year-old. Everyone is just like, well, ok, cool, I guess that just happened, good night!
K: How Leery Manor hasn’t been robbed 45,000 times over the years thanks to that ladder is totally beyond me. Although given that the Capeside police department includes a guy who pointed a gun at his 15 year old brother, I can understand why they didn’t call the police…
Diva: As Cliff and Jen leave, Cliff says he thought Jen liked to be scared and she’s like, uh, that’s the opposite of true, who told you that? Dawson, of course. Because Dawson would rather Jen be terrified – when he knows she hates to be scared – than be happy with Cliff. Because Dawson is a borderline sociopath. Dawson apparently told Cliff that if he wanted to impress Jen, doing all this scary shit to her would be perfect! Dawson didn’t give him specifics – Cliff came up with the completely fucked up note and phone call all by himself – but he did inspire Cliff, with all his lies about how Jen loves this kind of thing. Cliff still thinks he did like, the coolest thing ever, even once Jen is all, no, I don’t like that shit, because I’m NORMAL.
K: Cliff, dude. No. That was a TERRIBLE plan. Like, the worst plan of all time.
Diva: And I’m just sad because I actually liked Cliff until now. Jen breaks up with him and tells him to stop trying to emulate Dawson, because Dawson’s the worst Cliff should be himself. At Jen’s door, Cliff asks if he can give her a goodnight kiss. She pauses and seems like she’s about to say no, but before she can answer, Cliff attacks her face with his. Hey, Cliff, it doesn’t count as asking for consent if you kiss her before giving her time to answer the fucking question. Grams opens the door on them and is like, oh, I’m sorry to interrupt! You should continue making out, because sex is only evil if it’s not with good Christian boys. Jen gives Cliff a soft peck and heads inside, where Grams squees over Cliff and hands her a note. When she opens it, it makes a loud noise that scares her – it’s a Happy Friday the 13th note from Dawson. She smiles, then hands the letter to Grams and tells her the note is for her. Grams opens it and screams. Because giving old people heart attacks is hilarious!
Shrine O’Spielberg. Joey and Dawson debate who scared whom more. Dawson is like, why would you think I wouldn’t be sad if you died, and Joey’s face lights up, like Dawson just pledges his undying love to her. Sorry, girl, but people can be sad when their friends die, even friends they didn’t want to have sex with. Dawson asks if Joey would be sad if he died, and she gives her patented awkward Joey shrug and nods. He invites her to sleep over, and she agrees because it’s been a scary day, but now the 13th is over and done. He agrees, but when she lifts up the sheets there’s a zillion fake bugs in the bed. They get into bed, turn on the television, and see that the serial killer has been found. And of course, it’s the creeper who asked Joey for directions. Joey and Dawson exchange creeped-out glances, and the episode ends.
K: This episode was monumentally stupid from start to finish. Thanks a lot, Kevin Williamson…
Next time on Dawson’s Creek: it’s the “On My Own” Episode and we are so fucking excited for S01 E12 – Beauty Contest.
I'm a J.D. by day/blogger by night who directs her snark and judgment primarily towards celebrities and their many red carpet mishaps. Blogging from the style capital of the world (just kidding - I live in DC), I rant and rave over the best and worst in fashion and pop culture.
I'm a 30-something librarian and I still live with my parents because I'm super broke. Leader of Team Heartless Cow. I have an inexplicable love for 90s television, eat too much chocolate, and read more than is good for me.
